Beat.

Journalism as a job for some reasom, is continuing to scare me. I mean really. The fact that we have to pay attention to ALL the nitty gritty stuff is quite unnerving. So Ch 14 was all aboout beat reporting, which might seem easy because it is the same topic, but therein lies the trick. It may getter easiER down the road but the beginning could be quite tough. we need to start off being prepared (of course) and the preparation could actually be a lot of work...I thought the authors made agood pont by asking us to talk to the "predecessor" for more information. Because they probably will pave the way for you once they get started. I also like how they emphasized being insistent because that is a key skill needed by every journalist. But the one statement that really did stick out was when they said that reporters give up too easily. I do not know if that is true... ithought reporters are supposed to be these people with an undying urge to satisfy their neverending curiosity. I liked how they gave us the 411 on the police beat, court beat, school beat and the environmental beat. The last beat seems especially important in today's world.

The last part was nice segway into the website reading which continues to be more and more mind boggling. I felt like I was in the first week of Law 101 while reading all the chapter. It was all about the legal side of things which is great resource to have if you are assignined the court beat or the police beat. It is almost like law 101 for dummies...no offense.

I liked how they explained the whole process of the trial..from the arrest part to the verdict..and I liked how they explained the jury selection process and I did not know that you can actually be present for a jury selection..i thought it was this discreet method! Moreover I did not know a motion culd be made to challenge the jury selection. And I liked the explanation of all the motions too...I kind of enjoyed learning about all of this fancy stuff..sometimes the legal world is like politics..too confusing and complicated to even try to understand...I also did not know that after a death sentence, there is an automatic appeal state....

The whole civil court section was also quite interesting because I do not really hear about civil court cases unless the case has a potential to become national news..but I gues it is our job to find out if it does? I liked the little info piece on Pretrial activties...the more I read about all of this the more intimidating it seems....

I also did not know that a judge could reject an out of court settlement...i mean if both parties are okay then why does the judge have a problem?

Andlastly...i thought all settlement clauses were hands-off...PERIOD. I guess upon special request t is not.

Wow..there is so much I need to learn..and I thought biology was a pain.


psshhh.